Tradition · brassware craft · India
Moradabad brass
Also known as Peetal Nagri, brass city, Moradabad metalware
Uttar Pradesh's brass city, where some hundreds of thousands of workers cast, engrave, enamel and electroplate metalware in workshops threaded through the old town — an export industry rather than a village craft, and one of the largest handicraft economies in India.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 28.840, 78.770
Worth knowing
The trade is traced to the seventeenth century and the Mughal period, and it now runs on export orders from Europe and West Asia that dictate the designs. Much of the actual chasing and engraving is done at home, by women and children, on piece rates outside any factory register.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Moradabad”. Geographical Indications Registry (Government of India) filings; Ministry of Textiles and Sangeet Natak Akademi craft documentation.
Open Moradabad brass in the repository →